I was reading Darwin's discussion about how species should really be visualized in a much more fluid way than is typical.  Species are really constantly changing, and at any one time are just in whatever "form" that species inhabits at a particular moment in time (for example, Darwin mentions how sea shells will change color as they move closer to shore or into hotter waters, or how crabs can develop, then lose, then redevelop the use of their eyes depending on whether they live in a cave.  This made me think of our in-class discussion last week when people made claims along the lines of, "humans are de-evolving" or "humans have put an end to natural selection."  While I admit our advancements have changed our process of natural selection (glasses, contacts and lasik eye

In my class on Thursday with Paul, the group discussed that, in order for a person to live a "comfortable" life, there needs to be some sort of context and commonality, like the sun will rise in the morning or people sleep at night. But what if people become too comfortable or dependent with the stable environment they live in? Human beings, along with all other living organisms on the planet are constantly in motion and constantly changing. This is not only according to Darwin's theory of evolution, but also attributable to personal experiences of never being exactly the same person. For example, when I wake up in the morning, I am very tired, but during the day, I am awake and full of energy. This bodily change, while not evolutionary, is an example of how things are never constant.

Last week's group discussion brought up some interesting ideas that caused me to reflect. One of these was sparked by the question of what we thought about incest and the notion that we make decisions with our gut and spend our lives trying to find evidence for it. I was interested in the way in which these two played alongside one another, especially in the way that we saw this idea of gut decisions in action by being probed with this simple question. My initial reaction to the story of the siblings who had one raunchy night together was that of disgust. It was my guttural reaction associated with my socialization. You just don't do that. But then I took a step back (mentally), and gave it a second thought.

In class on Thursday, we discussed reading Darwin (and other books) from a different perspective or viewpoint to which we are familiar. Having already learned the story of evolution and natural selection in many science classes throughout my education, I find it difficult to read Darwin as someone who does not know the end result of his findings. However, I still enjoyed reading his observations. At points he seems to be personifying natural selection, giving it power and control similar to a human.

After we spoke in class on Tuesday about evolution/devolution, I started thinking about humankind today is perhaps the biggest force shaping its own evolution. This relationship is incredibly complex, and I'm definitely in no position to accurately predict what the outcomes of these processes will be, but a few human-induced changes to the way we evolve seem inevitable.

      Over winter break I read a book entitled Remarkable Creatures, written by Tracy Chevalier.   The story takes place in early 19th  century England, and is based on the real life of Mary Annings.  Mary Annings was a paleontologist who discovered and identified some of the first dinosaur fossils. Her specific specimens later proved critical in supporting the theory of extinction.

 I was very intrigued by our discussion on Thursday about context.  We ended mid argument on what makes context significant and what it means, which really got me thinking about how I use context in my life.  I agree with the idea that context is significant in itself for oneself and without context for yourself there is no meaning. 

 In my discussion group last Thursday, we were encouraged to think about the necessity of context if we are to be able to reach any conclusions in our course.  Or, rather, we were to consider whether a conclusion – a “truth” – can exist without the context of society to defend it. I confess that I don’t recall every response given, but I came away from the meeting with the impression that the general consensus was that, yes, commonality breeds “truth”.

I find myself disagreeing, however. I recognize that the agreement of most people on a single “fact” does help to establish it in our society, but I don’t think that holding an unpopular – even unique – view will cause a person to doubt his or her own “truth”.

 This weekend I came across an article in the New York Times that introduces another interesting story of evolution.  The article, titled, "Nonfiction: Nabokov Theory on Butterfly Evolution is Vindicated" talks about Vladamir Nabokov's (the author of Lolita and much more) work with butterflies and his theory of how the Polymmatus blues evolved.  He published his theory in a paper using "a few literary flourishes", proposing that millions of years ago the butterflies migrated to the New World from Asia in five different waves, and claiming that species that were thought to be closely related were in fact distantly related species.

 This weekend I found myself thinking more about the group discussion we had in Anne's section on Thursday. While we were trying to reconcile our own opinions on reading Darwin and on the topic of evolution we veered off into a discussion on incest, connecting the two through an emphasis on how our own past and experiences influence our gut reactions to controversial subjects, and how we then find as much data and ideas to back up our initial stance. What I found funny was how often I found this topic following me this weekend.